Valve announces Steam Deck portable PC games console

All hands on (Steam) Deck

by Andy Bassett

Game developer and distributor Valve has announced the Steam Deck, a hand held portable PC games console that will access a user’s Steam game library and much more.

Still probably best known for its Half Life games and Steam software distribution platform, US gaming giant Valve looks set to enter the portable handheld gaming arena which sees the likes of the Nintendo Switch, Nvidia Shield and, of course, most modern smart phones. 

Valve has stuck with the traditional look one would expect for a handheld gaming console with the ergonomic black slab containing a 7-inch 720p touchscreen, matching the Switch OLED, and end-mounted analogue thumbstick controllers where the hands naturally fall.

Below the thumbsticks are two Steam Controller style trackpads, while the facia also has access to ABXY buttons and a D-pad, with shoulder-mounted triggers and paddles placed underneath. 

The included gyroscope makes playing FPS games easier and there’re built-in microphones for communicating with fellow gamers, stereo audio with DSP, Bluetooth 5.0 and dual band Wi-Fi, though only up to the 802.11ac standard.

Storage options include 64GB eMMC memory as well as 256 or 512GB NVMe SSDs. These larger capacity models will reportedly load games as fast as the latest PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles, and Valve assures that there’s no in-game frame rate or image quality difference between the storage options. A microSD port will allow storage expansion to accommodate increasing numbers of games as your portable library grows.

Valve announces Steam Deck portable PC games console
Valve's Steam Deck handheld games console

Using an updated version of the Linux based Steam OS developed for 2015’s Steam Machine, the Steam Deck not only works with a user’s Steam account but will function as a PC too. There’s compatibility with other gaming platforms including Xbox Game Pass and Epic Games Store and it’s possible to download productivity apps, surf the web and even install Windows. It’s also possible to connect to a display and use a mouse and keyboard with the addition of the official optional dock which provides connections for the external displays, wired networking, USB peripherals and power.

TV Mode allows large screen gaming via USB-C but the quality shift from the 1280×800 LCD 60Hz display, where graphics will look crisp and smooth, to a big screen TV remains to be seen. However, the hardware grunt under the hood will likely help here with a custom Zen 2 AMD processor running at 2.4-3.5GHz and an AMD RDNA 2 GPU running at up to 1.6GHz coupled with 16 GB LPDDR5 RAM.

Valve says Steam Deck is specced "comparable to a gaming laptop with the ability to run the latest AAA games" and it has shown off games such as Control  and Jedi: Fallen Order running on its device.

Valve announces Steam Deck portable PC games console
Valve's Steam Deck handheld games console

All the internal hardware does add some extra weight to the Steam Deck and it’s a good deal heavier than the Switch at 669g, with the battery life is reported at up to 6-8 hours for 2D style games while this drops to around 2 hours for more graphically intense titles. 

"We think Steam Deck gives people another way to play the games they love on a high-performance device at a great price," Valve boss Gabe Newell said. "As a gamer, this is a product I've always wanted. And as a game developer, it's the mobile device I've always wanted for our partners."

Valve’s experience with hardware has been somewhat chequered with both the Steam Machine and Steam Controller no longer manufactured. Presumably the lessons learned from these projects have informed the developments behind the Steam Deck and the company must be feeling confident that it has got it right this time given the timing of its own announcement only a few weeks after Nintendo’s latest Switch model, the Switch OLED was unveiled.

The Steam Deck starts at £349 for the 64GB storage option with the larger storage options priced at £459 for the 256GB SSD and £569 for the 512GB SSD models. 

Available in early 2022 (recently pushed from Dec 2021), preorders being taken now.

No price for the optional dock has been announced 

Source: SteamDeck.comThe Verge, IGN

Image Source: Valve

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